


don’t care if it’s blasphemy

by lameafpun



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, Hurt No Comfort, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24449587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lameafpun/pseuds/lameafpun
Summary: Barb waits for Nance in the end.
Relationships: Barbara "Barb" Holland & Nancy Wheeler, Barbara "Barb" Holland/Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Kudos: 10





	don’t care if it’s blasphemy

Barb’s eyes are unable to leave Nance’s back as she walks away from her and up the stairwell and she is suddenly so, so tired. There’s no room in her for anger, not anymore, not for Nancy.

Yet her hands are clenching as she stands in that hallway, and drops of blood fall onto the immaculately vacuumed carpet. Dull throbbing pain radiates out from her thumb — a small cut, but deep, and when she glances down she can see the bandage already reddening as droplets seep out of the side.

A half hour. She’ll stay behind for half an hour — just to make sure Nancy stays safe. Bard nods to herself and makes herself move back, stops herself from thinking of the goings-on of upstairs where Nance is probably shrugging off the shirt they’d bought together at the mall and letting Harrington clumsily unclip the bra she’d changed into in Barb’s car.

The pool. Right, the pool.

Barb stumbles outside, almost tripping over the sliding door’s frame. Her breath is heavy and her glasses are blurring before her eyes. It makes her already abysmal vision worse and she does trip over a pair of sodden sneakers that nearly sends her into the pool.

Shakily, she fumbles her shoes off and settles on the diving board, ignoring the water that seeps into the seat of her rolled-up jeans and walks down it to dip her feet into the water. If she had been in any doubt of the Harrington’s wealth, this would have dismissed them; the water was heated. She hadn’t had much of a chance to enjoy it before, as she’d watched as Nance and the others had pushed each other in.

Absentmindedly, she kicks and tries to enjoy the simple pleasure of splashing. There’s a disturbance in one of the second floor rooms, a shadow thrown up against the blinds, and she can’t quite make herself look away. It’s nothing, really. A big blob that looks nothing like a human but Barb wrenches her eyes away to look into the pool’s clear, chlorinated waters.

Her mind wanders as her toes prune and her feet kick and splash aimlessly. Trains of thought leave and return to the station, always in motion but never able to avoid snagging on . . . something. A slimy bitterness in her that she covers with a blank face but is never truly able to let go.

The “d” word had been hurled at Barb far too many times for it to truly hurt any more — at least on the surface. Now she could do what her younger self couldn’t, which was to bear it with a raised chin. She couldn’t do the same to those who held that word inside of them and let it be spoken through the way they looked at her, at her friends who didn’t fit either. That hurt too, with a dull sort of pain that came from not even having the opportunity to defend herself against people so convinced of their supposed knowledge of her they couldn’t even see her personhood. An apathetic unacceptance; a fact of life.

Love cut deeper. She could’t bring herself to hate it or force herself to become indifferent for the hope that — the hope. Just that, she thinks. Following that string will only hurt.

“Theater kid.” Barb rolls her eyes and huffs as the old scar gets buried, as the distance between it and herself reasserts itself and she can laugh again, at the girl who fell in love with someone so in love with the aesthetic of having a boyfriend; an actual tragedy but she can’t see the stage or a hint of the props in use. Maybe she wasn’t being entirely fair but neither was Nancy. Nancy, Nancy, Nancy. She can remember their kiss at the end of middle school, can still taste the cheap lip balm and the bitterness of not being the first choice because Nancy didn’t want to go into high school without having had her first kiss. Barb can close her eyes and see the way Nance’s eyes had widened when Barb had broken away, burned by the sparks. She can feel her hand tightening, slim fingers threading through hers, as they lean toward each other and Nance bumps into her glasses — but the kiss occupies them both and Barb can recall the bolt of realization that “this is it. This could be the rest of my life and I would be happy with her ring on my finger and waking up to my best friend every day.”

(so what the fuck, nance?)

Red blooms in the water below her. Barb registers this at the back of her mind, to change the bandage.

**Author's Note:**

> more barb/nance feels bc i'm literally incapable of being happy rn


End file.
